Does high click volume mean that I'm getting invalid clicks?

There are valid reasons for an ad to receive multiple clicks from a single source. The following are some possible scenarios:

* Individual users may legitimately click on your ad more than one time when comparison shopping or returning to your site for more information.
* An Internet provider may assign identical IP addresses to multiple users by geographic area.
* You may see an increase in traffic if your ads have recently been approved to run on search and content sites and products in the Google Network, if you recently opted in to the Google Network, or if new sites for which your ads are relevant join our content network.
* Click traffic may vary due to seasonal interests or current events. For example, fluctuations due to seasonal promotions or special sales are common, and keywords popular at particular times of the year will also experience a higher click volume regardless of whether you have made proactive seasonal changes to your account content.

These scenarios all represent legitimate users accessing your advertisement in expected ways. If you are uncomfortable with the increased click volume, we recommend optimizing your campaign.

How do I report suspected invalid clicks?

While we're constantly working to improve our invalid click detection capabilities, we can combat the problem best by working together. We encourage you to contact us if you believe you have been affected by invalid clicks.

We have a team of experts who investigate invalid click activity on a case-by-case basis. Including some or all of the following information may help expedite their time-intensive investigation:

1. The campaign(s), Ad Group(s), and/or keyword(s) associated with the suspicious clicks.
2. The date(s) and time(s) of the suspicious click activity.
3. Any data in your weblogs or reports that indicate suspicious IP addresses, referrers, or requests.
4. A paragraph describing the trends in logs and/or reports that led you to believe the click activity is invalid.

The verification and research process can be time consuming, and we appreciate your patience while our investigation team reviews your account. Please allow 3-5 business days for us to respond. If you have any additional information, please be sure to let us know so we can include it in our review.

To learn more about our click protection strategies, click here.

To learn how Google deals with invalid click activity, click here.

What does Google do when invalid clicks are detected?

Google actively implements several click protection techniques in order to combat invalid click activity. Clicks that Google determines invalid are automatically filtered from your reports. In addition, we apply the following policies for the protection of AdWords advertisers:

* If our experts find that invalid clicks have escaped automatic detection, you'll receive a credit for those clicks. This credit will appear as an Adjustment on the Billing Summary page of the 'My Account' section in your AdWords account. (Other types of credits, such as promotional credits and overdelivery credits, may also be labeled Adjustment.)
* Any advertiser or publisher participating in invalid click activity or any related offense is subject to legal prosecution. We will also take the appropriate action on the related account.

If you believe your account reports reflect click activity that is more extreme than ordinary user behavior or that exhibits strange patterns, please click here for more information and instructions.

Other Sources of Clicks

If you notice click activity that doesn't fit your usual patterns, please keep in mind the following possible explanations:

* Individual users may legitimately click on your ad more than one time when comparison shopping or returning to your site for more information.
* An Internet provider may assign identical IP addresses to multiple users by geographic area.
* You may see an increase in traffic if your ads have recently been approved to run on search and content sites and products in the Google Network, if you recently opted in to the Google Network, or if new sites for which your ads are relevant join our content network.
* Click traffic may vary due to seasonal interests or current events. For example, fluctuations due to seasonal promotions or special sales are common, and keywords popular at particular times of the year will also experience a higher click volume regardless of whether you have made proactive seasonal changes to your account content.

These scenarios all represent legitimate users accessing your advertisement in expected ways.

For more information about our click monitoring system, please visit our Click Quality FAQ.

What kinds of clicks does Google consider invalid?

Some sources of invalid clicks include:

* Manual clicks intended to increase your advertising costs or to increase profits for website owners hosting your ads.
* Clicks by automated tools, robots, or other deceptive software.

We closely monitor these and other scenarios to better protect you from receiving invalid clicks. To learn more about what we do to combat invalid clicks, please click here.

What can I do to help monitor or prevent invalid clicks on my ad?

You might consider using tracking URLs to monitor click activity on your ads. Tracking URLs make it possible to accurately identify all the traffic that comes from Google (or other sources) to your website. Once you know the sources of your clicks, you can track which keywords generate sales and give you the best return on investment.

To take advantage of tracking URLs, just place a parameter at the end of your URL. For example, if your URL is www.yourdomain.com, your tracking URL would be www.yourdomain.com/?referrer=Google.

It's important to test each new tracking URL in your own web browser to verify that it's linking properly to its specified page. If you find that a tracking URL isn't linking properly, you might want to eliminate the forward slash after the domain. For example, instead of www.yourdomain.com/?referrer=Google, try using www.yourdomain.com?referrer=Google.

Once you've created your tracking URLs, you can look at your web server logs or third party tracking software to get traffic data for your ads.

Web server logs provide electronic recordings of where your website traffic originates. To open the log file in your Web server software, use a text editor such as Notepad. This log file has an entry for each click to your site. To see how many clicks come from a particular source, just count the entries where the source (such as 'Google' or Google Network sites and products) appears in the referring URL.

What else can I do?

If you believe your account reports reflect click activity that is more extreme than ordinary user behavior or that exhibits strange patterns, please let us know.

Why might my website logs show different click patterns than what Google reports?

You might see a discrepancy between your weblogs and the reports in your account. If your weblogs show more clicks than your reports, keep in mind that our proprietary click protection technology filters out most invalid clicks before they ever reach your reports. To maintain the integrity of our advertising program, we work to make sure you're being billed for legitimate clicks on your ads.

If your weblogs show fewer clicks than your account reports, this discrepancy occurs when clicks to your ad are not detected by your web tracking software. The information below should help you reconcile your weblogs to the statistics reported within your account.

How our system works

Since our results pages host your ads, we are able to detect and record all types of clicks to your ad. If you are looking for more accurate reports than your current web tracking system, many users have found that the weblogs from their server are more reliable for comparisons with our reports.

Additionally, Google's reporting technology can record clicks that other web tracking programs may miss. Some tracking programs may not register clicks that occur while the destination site is down, or they may have limitations on the kinds and sources of clicks they detect.

Reconcile your weblogs

The following variables are the most common for those advertisers concerned about a discrepancy between their reporting statistics versus those reported via Google AdWords:

* Google Network statistics: Google displays ads on a growing network of search and content sites and products. Typically, Web tracking software is not able to recognize clicks from the Google Network as being Google's clicks. These are generally labeled with the third party site name, not as clicks from Google. If your ads are currently, or have ever been, distributed to the Google Network such as About.com, AOL, and Netscape, we recommend you visit our Google Network FAQ to determine whether some of the referrers to your site were from the Google Network.
* Time discrepancies: Time discrepancies between different tracking programs can throw off click estimates. Be sure to compare the appropriate time periods. All of our reports are accumulated on U.S. Pacific Standard Time (08:00 Greenwich Mean Time). To ensure the highest level of accuracy, there is a delay between the moment when a user actually clicks on your ad and when that click is reported as a statistic within your account. This delay represents the time required to evaluate and report the click as a valid one.
* IP selection: Your system may filter out visits from your IP address; however, AdWords does not. Also, if you currently use a shared ISP provider (such as AOL or EarthLink), you may be sharing one or more IP addresses with other users. Therefore, multiple clicks from the same IP address could be legitimate clicks from multiple users; each one would be reported as an individual, valid click within your account.

How will Google credit my account for invalid clicks?

Google constantly monitors for, and strictly prohibits, invalid click activity. We work hard to maintain the integrity of our advertising program and to make sure you're being billed for legitimate clicks on your ads. If we discover that you've been charged for invalid clicks in the past two months, we'll apply credits to your account.

You'll find any credits, including credits for invalid clicks, in your billing summary as a line item labeled Adjustment. Please note that other types of credits, such as promotional credits, may also fall under the Adjustment line item.

Will my reporting be affected by invalid clicks?

Our proprietary click protection technology filters out most invalid clicks before they ever reach your reports. To maintain the integrity of our advertising program, we work to make sure you're being billed for legitimate clicks on your ads.

However, if you feel that your account reports reflect invalid clicks, please let us know by following the steps listed here.

Please note that by creating an AdWords account, advertisers agree to accept the Google AdWords reporting system and reported metrics as provided via the AdWords program Terms and Conditions. We rely on our own servers' weblogs to supply the most accurate site traffic data to include in your reports. Similarly, we rely on our data to determine whether or not a credit for invalid clicks is due. If we discover that you've been charged for invalid clicks in the past two months, we'll issue an appropriate credit, but we're unable to retroactively change reports.

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